Thursday, November 25, 2010

We note that Peter Biyiasas turned sixty on November 19 (incidentally also Capablanca's birthday). Born in Athens, Greece, Biyiasas first played competitive chess in Winnipeg: he participated in the 1966 Manitoba - Minnesota match and also won the Winnipeg Inter-High School championship. By May of 1967 Biyiasas had moved to Vancouver, placing sixth in that year's B.C. Championship. He improved rapidly, winning the tournament the following year and repeating as champion in 1969, 1971 and 1972. Unsurprisingly he also won various junior events he was eligible for, including the 1967 and 1968 B.C. High School championships and the 1971 U.S. Junior Open. Biyiasas participated in four Canadian Championships, winning the title in 1972 and 1975 and tying for third in 1978. Team competitions seem to have brought out his best: Biyiasas played second reserve for the bronze medal winning Canadian team at the 1971 Mayaguez Student Olympiad, while in four full olympiads he won three individual medals, two bronze (Skopje 1972 and Haifa 1976) and a silver (Buenos Aires 1978). Biyiasas became Canada's third (and B.C.'s second) grandmaster in 1978 through results achieved at the Haifa Olympiad, Lone Pine 1978, and the GHI International (New York, 1978). He played in a number of international events including two interzonals (Petropolis 1973 and Manila 1976) and three times at the annual Hastings tournament. His best results, in addition to those already mentioned, were a tie for first at Norristown 1973, third in the Marshall Chess Club International 1977, tying for first in the 1978 World Open, a tie for fourth at the 1980 Hoogovens tournament behind Browne, Seirawan and Korchnoi, and tying for second at Zrenjanin 1980.

However, by this point Biyiasas had emigrated to California; he won a number of weekend events in the next few years, but increasingly transferred his attentions to a career as a computer programmer (paralleling to some degree the path of B.C.'s other grandmaster, Duncan Suttles). His last competitive event appears to have been in 1986. Biyiasas was married to WIM Ruth Haring; the couple had three children, the youngest of which, Theodore, has recently taken up tournament chess.